Unreal Engine 3 hits Palm’s webOS: gamers ahoy!

Palm’s Pre and Pixi aren’t exactly known as gaming powerhouses, but that could go a long way in changing now that Unreal Engine 3 is arriving for the webOS platform. Announced at the Game Developers’ Conference this week, the new UE3 release – which should be available to licensees soon – works hand in hand with Palm’s Plug-in Development Kit (PDK) beta.

Unreal Engine 3 is the engine behind Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears of War, among multiple other titles, and from what we’re hearing from the GDC its performance on webOS was surprisingly good. There’s even a minimal frame-rate preview version for webOS’ card view, though if you leave your game mid-play to enjoy it then we don’t see you lasting the level. Since the Pre is based on the same processor that iPhone 3GS game developers have had such success with recently, we’re hoping that this could be the shot in the arm Palm needs to stay topical.